


reduce, reuse, recycle (the timeline)

by Lyre (Lyrecho)



Series: a fool's journey [1]
Category: Persona Series, Tales of Symphonia
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Oneshot, Persona 2 Elements, Persona Fusion, Prequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:53:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22595845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyrecho/pseuds/Lyre
Summary: To save is to destroy. To have is to lose. To live is to die.For every cure, a poison.The curtains close on one timeline, life anew springing from choking ash and ruin. Martel is dead. Martel isdead.|Tumblr||Twitter|
Series: a fool's journey [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1449157
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	reduce, reuse, recycle (the timeline)

**Author's Note:**

> uuuuuu okay so i'm working on finishing up the final chapter of the persona au kranna fic but until then. have this prologue to the whole verse i've been pecking at for half a year but haven't continued because it just ends so perfectly akfhkg

The day Martel dies is the day the world ends.

It's like something out of a tragedy, a grand epic - it sounds like it's an exaggeration born from grief, too fantastic, too horrible, to be true.

Their timeline fades away, decay crumbling into ruin and bringing forth life anew. Martel fades with it, a starburst of soul; love and hope for a better world. For them to live, for Mithos to keep smiling.

(Mithos will not smile for a very long time.)

Mithos, at that moment, is shaking behind Kratos. From anger, disbelief, horror...he cannot tell. Truthfully, he is too wrapped up in his own emotions to pay much notice - his own choking grief, his mounting rage at the man that stands before them, as calm and placid behind his mask as ever.

"It is time to move on, now," Origin says, slow and easy, like Martel's life is _nothing_. "The world resets to zero, and you can no longer be here."

Mithos makes an angry sound, the first time he's shown any signs of life since Martel had bled out in front of them. By his side, Yuan's hiss echoes his own discontent.

"But what about Martel?" Mithos says, and his voice wavers on the knife edge of tears. "What about my _sister?"_

His voice cracks, and Kratos has to look away. His hands curl into fists, the bite of the half-moons his nails cut into his palms keeping him grounded in reality when all he wants to do is drown.

Origin's silence lingers a second too long, and Mithos takes a step forward. It moves him closer to the spirit, and away from Kratos - away from Martel, crumpled at his feet, the broken corpse Mithos hasn't managed to look at since she stopped breathing.

"You said it would be fine," Mithos insists. "You - you told us, all the people who had died, everyone taken by the shadows...you said, when the world reset, it'd be like nothing bad had ever happened. You _said."_

"I did," Origin agrees. "All those that passed in the world before will exist in the world that is to come."

"Then - "

"Martel did not pass in that world," Origin says, gentle and all the more cruel for it. "She lost her life amidst the sea. She has become one of many amongst the collective unconscious. Scattered shards. There isn't enough left of her whole to bring back."

Mithos' face is white. "No," he says. "No. You're wrong."

"...I am sorry," Origin says. "I truly did not want this to end like this." He raises a hand, and Kratos jolts - he doesn't know what he thinks Origin is going to do, what he thinks he himself s going to do, but the spirit placing a gentle hand on Mithos' head isn't it, and it doesn't comfort him, even as it gives him pause.

Mithos flinches under his touch.

And then he's gone.

"What - " Anxiety and anger war in Yuan's voice, ripping through the tearful silence he's kept so well since Martel had fallen. "What did you do to him?"

"I sent him on," Origin says. "There is no longer any reason for life to linger here, and he would not leave willingly."

One brief, agonized look at Martel, and Yuan closes his eyes. "Of course he wouldn't."

His voice is a whisper, and rough - so unlike the bright, vibrant man Kratos has known for so long, who dyed his hair blue once on a dare and then decided he liked it so much he was going to forget it had ever had another colour.

This past year has been hard, but throughout it all, Yuan never wavered.

It hurts, to see him break now. Like having his ribcage torn open, exposing his organs to the harsh knives of winter.

"I suppose this is my curtain call too, huh?" Yuan's whispered question is not a question, and he pays Origin no mind as he steps forward - keeps his gaze afixed solely on Martel, like he's trying desperately to memorise every inch of my face.

Just before Origin makes contact, Yuan's eyes flick up to meet Kratos'.

"Let's meet again," he says, and the smile he offers can't hide his tears. "On the other side."

And then he's gone, too, and it's just Kratos and Origin, and the dead girl between them.

Kratos had always been the oldest among their number, so it strikes some dramatic sense of irony that he, as the first of them to be born into this world, will be the last of them to leave it.

Looking at Origin, though, he doesn't feel as if that terrible, grief-struck irony is the true reason why the master of the Velvet Room - Origin, the existence that oversees the collective unconscious - has chosen to keep him here, in this rapidly breaking down space, when he's already forced Mithos and Yuan on.

"Hello, Kratos," Origin says. "It's been a while since we've really talked, hasn't it?"

Martel's body is cooling on the floor, and the faint hint of a smile he can hear in Origin's voice has his rage running hot. His nails bite bleeding half-moons into his palms, and Kratos tries desperately to keep a hold on his faltering calm.

"What do you want," he says. It isn't a question. He doesn't have anything left in him that would lead him to ask questions.

Origin tilts his head. "The world is dying," he says. "Is, in fact, already dead." He shrugs, and smiles, soft and sad, like he's actually capable of feeling anything. "Once reality starts anew, you'll not remember that which has passed in this time. We will never have reason to meet again. I simply thought it polite to allow you the opportunity for a final goodbye."

_Final_ is exactly what Kratos wants. After everything they'd done - everything they had fought for, all they'd sacrificed and lost - Martel's life was too high a price. Take him instead. Hell, take the world - let time turn in on itself and devour all until there was nothing left. Of all of them, of anyone, Martel didn't deserve this fate.

Kratos wants final. If this world is dying, if _Martel_ dies with it, then he wants, with all his being, to take that same price from Origin in blood.

But the man that stands before him isn't human, isn't mortal, has never been either of those things, and while Kratos' anger may steel his spine, his grief crushes him.

(Kratos has always been a coward.)

"I have nothing left to say to you," he says, tone cold and hard and echoing empty, and behind that damnable mask Origin wears he swears he sees those otherworldly gold eyes flicker to something darker, more human - lit up with a flash of pity, if just for a second.

"Then there is nothing more to say," Origin says finally. "I hope you find the new world a kinder one, Kratos." Behind his mask, gold eyes glow red. "Farewell."


End file.
